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A Writer Watches His Life Unspool on Film

By Bruce Fretts April 14, 2015 2:00 pmApril 14, 2015 2:00 pm

In 2002, The New York Times ended its contract with the writer Michael Finkel after he fictionalized a story about slavery in Africa. Soon afterward, Mr. Finkel discovered his identity had been stolen by Christian Longo, a man who had just been arrested for the murders of his wife and three children in Oregon.

Seeing an opportunity to restore his reputation — and sensing a great story — Mr. Finkel engaged in correspondence and conversations with Mr. Longo and briefly believed he might be innocent. After Mr. Longo was convicted and sentenced to death, Mr. Finkel turned his experience into the 2005 memoir “True Story.” It has now been made into a film, due Friday, with Jonah Hill as Mr. Finkel and James Franco as Mr. Longo.

Mr. Finkel recently saw the movie and was struck by the fact that certain incidents had to be fictionalized for dramatic purposes — fair game for a feature film but an ethical transgression when he committed it as a journalist. “A lot of things that were passed through letters and phone calls were portrayed as happening in person, which is understandable, since film is a visual medium,” Mr. Finkel said.

One scene, in which Mr. Finkel’s girlfriend, Jill Barker (Felicity Jones), angrily confronts Mr. Longo in prison, was invented entirely. “Jill and Chris did exchange letters and speak on the phone, but she did not visit him in person,” said Mr. Finkel, who is now married to Ms. Barker. Still, he contends, the scene’s “emotional content was accurate.”

Rupert Goold, a British theater veteran who co-wrote and directed the film, said the scene was “an extrapolation from what I knew to be Jill’s attitude rather than what really happened.” He explained his need to create this showdown: “Ultimately, this is a film noir, only James Franco plays the femme fatale instead of someone like Kim Basinger. In some sense, it’s an encounter between the wife and the other woman.”

Mr. Finkel kept his distance from the film during production, though he dined with Mr. Hill, Ms. Jones and Mr. Goold before shooting began. Mr. Hill asked questions about how the writer felt after The Times cut ties with him and when he met Mr. Longo. “Jonah wanted to take what I told him and do his own interpretation,” Mr. Finkel said.

He visited the set only once, when Mr. Longo’s trial was being recreated, with some testimony quoted verbatim, and found it “a weirdly traumatic experience,” he said. “It brought back some very uncomfortable flashbacks. I never forget at the heart of this story is three murdered children and a murdered wife. That’s the nature of this material — it’s tragic, creepy and compelling.”

It’s also a story that hasn’t yet reached its ending. Mr. Finkel, who now lives in Bozeman, Mont., maintains contact with Mr. Longo, who is on death row in Marion County, Ore. “He calls me the first Sunday of every month,” Mr. Finkel says. “There’s always this internal tug of war over whether I should pick up the phone or not, but I usually do.”

It turns out he can’t resist a good true-crime tale. “I was way too emotionally involved this story, and I want to see it play through,” Mr. Finkel said. “Despite the fact he’s a sociopath and a quadruple murderer, Longo is also insanely perceptive and eloquent, and his descriptive abilities are amazing. So yes, I pick up the phone. I’m a journalist.”

Correction: April 15, 2015An earlier version of this post misidentified the county in Oregon where Mr. Longo is on death row. It is Marion County, not Lincoln County, where his trial was held.